The app store was flooded with chatbots and automated digital programs, based on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), and designed to provide a therapeutic solution to common human problems such as stress, depression, and anxiety. These apps have been marketed as the next hot thing that would replace the need to attend treatment and open up to a therapist. But if we learned anything from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that interpersonal relationships are a fundamental human need. Therapists have reported a threefold increase in demand for psychological treatment since the onset of the pandemic. Psychologists, more than ever, are inundated by referrals and increased distress in their clients.

When British charity The Samaritans was forced to abandon its'Radar' Twitter app in 2014, many in the health community worried that emerging AI technology was poorly suited to the sensitivity of mental illness. The app, designed to read users' tweets for evidence of suicidal thoughts, was criticised for a host of reasons, with one online petition accusing Radar of breaching the privacy of vulnerable Twitter users by alerting everybody – friends and foe alike – of their condition. But three years on, it appears the incident has not halted AI's incursion into psychological healthcare, which artificial intelligence developers believe could be one of their technology's most exciting applications. One such backer is Jim Schwoebel, CEO of US-based NeuroLex, who made headlines last year with his tool to help doctors screen patients for schizophrenia. When Schwoebel's brother developed psychosis, he told The Atlantic last year, doctors required more than 10 primary-care appointments before he was diagnosed.